When Marin first envisioned himself on a quest to obtain new subordinates to protect his kingdom of Nocturne, he never would’ve imagined an outcome such as the one that had played out. The Scarlet Eye – these thieves, murderers, outlaws – had thrown a wrench into all his plans.

  What should have been a reasonable recruitment effort, had turned into a nightmare of pursuit, an unwanted feeling of guilt, and overall a chaotic timeline of events.

  The rogues should have never bothered him. He shouldn’t have ever met Travis, or the doctor for that matter. Gus should’ve never been stabbed. Yet, fate had played its hand, and all these matters came to pass with or without his desire.

  What Marin could only do now was make the most of these events, and do everything he could to turn them into a positive.

  Right now though, he was trying to stop a major negative.

  Marin didn’t doubt Doctor Eisen’s ability to defend himself. The man was just as powerful as he was unhinged, but he worried if it would be enough to save Gus as well.

  Gus – Marin felt terrible for. Despite the events that had spiraled out of his control, he still blamed himself for the near-death experience his servant had endured. If he had any idea what danger would come his way, he would have never brought Gus along.

  Marin raced his way back into Tarenfall’s city walls. His kinetic ice dashed him forward at a great speed through the farmsteads that settled the outer perimeter. He payed little mind to the farmers and peasants that saw him, who stopped their plowing to watch an ice elemental whiz by for the first time in a while, if they had ever seen it.

  Lorette had sent the entirety of her order to slay Gus and even the doctor as a revenge play for killing her two other partners. If Marin didn’t get to Eisen’s house in time, she would succeed.

  No wall was too tall for Marin. When he approached the intimidating stone guardian that kept the city safe, he pillared his way to the top with ice.

  Quick stunts such as this were usually in the ballpark of tactical elemental practices, such as those taught at Neo, but Marin was such an excellent technical caster, that skills like these were easy enough for him without direct training.

  It would really be put to the test today, because in this moment Marin would be moving as fast as he could, and that required immediate placing and casting of ice. He moved from roof to roof in the city, expertly creating ice bridges over them, strategically placed ramps for soaring greater distances, all while giving the hastily created ice the kinetic property. This would be an impossible feat for all but the highest masters of the ice element to create this special form of ice so quickly and accurately.

  There was one unique feature about Eisen’s house that would help Marin locate the spot in a more timely manner. He was in the slums district, Marin knew, but Eisen was also nestled along the back corner of the city’s walls. All Marin had to do was reach the other end of the city, near the back corner, and he would spot the dark roof of the home.

  He just hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

  Marin made great time, but for him it felt like hours. A few of the cityfolk below gazed up at him as he flew by. Marin believed he even caught the attention of some guards, but at the rate he was moving, no one would be able to catch up to him.

  He crossed into the slums district, and Marin became more careful about how placed his ice. The roofs in this section were poorly made, and some looked as if they would collapse under the smallest amount of weight.

  After a little more time and some fancy ice placement, Marin was relieved to see the pocket in the wall that contained Eisen’s residence. He hoped he wasn’t too late.

  What he saw though, he could have never prepared himself for.

  Upon brushing over the top of the last wall, Marin landed in the dead yard of the doctor’s property.

  Now though, the grass wasn’t the only thing dead in his yard.

  There were bodies. Bodies littering the area. All deceased, all dressed in the attire of The Scarlet Eye. Every person he saw was killed in some unique way.

  One had his chest exploded. One had his top half of his body missing. One was a dried out corpse, every bit of blood missing from him. Marin gawked in horror at all the deceased around him, many who died in quite the graphic way.

  Eisen’s house was in an even more devastated state than when he first arrived. Chunks of the wall were blown out. Shingles missing on the roof, a small part caved in. The windows were blown out, and the door which Marin had spent a considerable amount of time fixing, was no where in sight.

  “HELLO?!” Marin finally cried out.

  He had to push all the sights of death out of his mind to focus on finding Gus and the doctor.

  Marin ran into the house. It was trashed entirely. Almost everything was broken. What wasn’t was displaced so much from collisions or even explosions. The sun shown in from the broken roof, which was now littered with holes.

  All the work Marin had done to clean Eisen’s home was all in vain.

  “Gus?! Doctor Eisen?!” Marin cried out again, trying to navigate the debris on the floor, along with the occasional dead body.

  “...Marin?”

  He turned his head. It was faint, but it was Gus’s voice.

  “Where are you?!” Marin ran towards the sound of the voice, it lead him back to the bedroom where Gus had been staying at.

  The door was gone, most of the wall as well. At this point, Marin wondered if the house was structurally sound anymore. It could come down collapsing at a moment’s notice.

  When Marin entered the room, he found Gus crouched down in the back corner, knife in hand, and a horrid look on his face.

  “Gus, my boy!” Marin shouted, quite relieved.

  Gus had the knife in hand, ready to defend himself from another attacker. When he saw his King, he began to lower his weapon and let out a deep breath. He relaxed himself, but a look of fear and concern still plagued his face.

  Marin ran up to him and crouched down to his level, grabbing both sides of his shoulders.

  “Are you alright?! Are you hurt?” Marin demanded.

  “...K-King Marin. You’re alive?” Gus asked back in a nearly monotone voice, still spacing out.

  “Yes! Yes I am! What happened?! Where is the doctor?”

  Gus didn’t answer right away, but soon he focused himself at hearing about the doctor. He shook his head, regaining his sense.

  “The doctor! Oh, man, Marin. Eisen… He… He’s not human! I swear it! The things he did… The things I saw…”

  “Okay, but where is he?!” Marin said, cutting him off.

  “I don’t know! I… I’ve been protecting myself in this corner the whole time. I think they’re all gone. All the rogues. I think the doctor killed them all!”

  Marin immediately stood up, and helped Gus to his feet as well.

  “We need to get out of here,” Marin instructed. “Are you sure you have no idea where Doctor Eisen-”

  There was a sudden yelp from down below. It sounded like it came from the basement. Marin quickly grabbed Gus’s arm in response. He waited for a moment for an attack, but it never came. After another moment, Marin gestured Gus to follow him, and they walked down the hallway to the kitchen, which had a door way leading to stairs that went to the basement.

  “Sit still!” It was the doctor’s voice.

  Marin had heard it come from the basement.

  He ran down the stairs.

  In the basement, was the doctor. His hair was scattered across his shoulders, undone from the pony tail. His glasses were missing, and his clothing was torn. The labcoat was missing its sleeves, and his left arm was morbidly discolored, blotches of purple and red.

  He held a large syringe in hand, and a member of The Scarlet Eye was tied up on a rolling chair beside him, unable to flee or barely move.

  Marin just barely shouted out in time to stop the doctor from injecting the rogue with some sort of serum.

  “Eisen! What’s going on!? What are you doing?!” Marin demanded.

  Gus took a step back. After what he had witness the doctor do, he wanted to be in no short distance of him.

  The doctor jerked his long neck towards Marin, halting his lab experiment.

  “Ah, Marin! There you are! Come assist me in holding this deviant still, I need to try out a new formula!”

  Marin was bewildered. What sort of game was Eisen playing? Had he gone mad from the events of the attack? Why was he conducting an experiment at a time like this?

  Marin had enough.

  He walked up to the doctor, and snatched his syringe from his hands, and threw it to the side, onto his desk.

  “What’s the meaning of this?!” Marin fiercely questioned.

  “Hey!” Eisen yelled back.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Edward! What the hell is going on?!”

  Eisen eyed his syringe that had been thrown, then back to Marin. He sighed.

  “Looks like the organization of rogues you’ve squabbled with came calling for some revenge. A lot of them too. But as you’ve probably seen, I’m taking care of the matter. Now if you’re not going to help me, then leave me be.”

  Eisen went for the syringe again.

  “Doctor, there are dozens of dead bodies on your lawn, the guards are bound to show up at some point to investigate, and your house is in dire need of repair, yet you elect to take this time for an experiment?!” Marin yelled.

  Eisen paused, facing towards his desk, halting his action of retrieving his formula in the syringe.

  He stood there for a moment, then pounded the desk.

  “Fine.” The doctor uttered.

  He turned back around, walked up to his unwilling subject, and in one clean movement, snapped his neck, instantly killing him.

  “...But you owe me one test subject, now.”

  “We need to take care of the bodies everywhere. Stash them down here in the basement, and I will take care of the rest,” Marin ordered.

  Doctor Eisen seemed annoyed, but yielded. He agreed with Marin, and began cleaning up the aftermath of the attack.

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  The three headed back upstairs from the basement, and began grabbing the bodies, moving them away.

  As Gus began to pick up body parts, he became visibly sick.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Marin,” he stated.

  “Steel yourself, Gus. You’re alive, aren’t you? Would you rather be dead?” Marin said back as he picked up a rogue member under his shoulders.

  Gus silently shook his head to himself. He had to put out of his mind that what he was picking up was once alive. At least the gooey monster that Eisen had destroyed earlier had helped him in getting used to handling organic material such as this.

  Once the bodies had been taken care of, they took a small break in the basement.

  “Thirty-seven, total,” Eisen stated. “I can’t guarantee I killed all the attackers, there’s a chance some fled, but any that had an encounter with me are all here.”

  Marin couldn’t believe how messy Eisen had been with the rogues, he expected someone of his skill to perform cleaner kills, but he had no room to complain, seeing as he had kept Gus alive.

  “This is all of it, then?” Marin asked.

  “Every body, every bone, every liver. I did two passes,” Eisen confirmed.

  Marin then took a step forward.

  Eisen and Gus watched as Marin extended his hand, and began freezing the pile of bodies. It was a unique form of ice Gus had never seen before. It wasn’t transparent as normal, or even opaque. The ice was foggy, and impossible to see into.

  After the ice had covered the entire pile, Marin took a moment, and began subtly moving his fingers. The ice cracked at each movement.

  Whatever ability Marin was performing, it wasn’t instantaneous like Gus had always seen. Marin was such a master at his element, that every move he used had been immediate. Whatever he was doing now, it was actually taking him some time to get right.

  His fingers wiggled more, as if he was conducting some sort of symphony from within his palm. After a few more seconds, he finally clutched his hands into fists, and the ice broke, crackling onto the ground, and began dissolving away.

  Marin turned back around to face the two of them while the ice continued dissipating.

  “That’s taken care of,” Marin said, as he walked back to the stairs leading out of the basement.

  Gus watched Marin walk by him, then he turned back to the pile. When the final bit of foggy ice disappeared, so too had everything that was contained inside. The bodies were gone, not a single trace of anything was left from what he had froze.

  Gus could tell Marin was deeply disturbed by everything that had happened, he was not in a good mood, even more so after having to dispose of large pile of bodies in such a brutal way. It was an impressive move, but one he could tell Marin never ever wanted to do.

  Doctor Eisen then headed upstairs as well, leaving Gus standing down there alone. He continued to stare impressively at the now empty floor, replaying in his mind how Marin was able to make things literally disappear.

  He started thinking how long it would take him to learn that ability. Was Marin still going to teach him like he said? His King was very upset for the time being, perhaps he could cheer him up.

  Gus headed up stairs too after a minute. In the kitchen, he saw Eisen drawing a cup of water from a barrel, now looking more tired than he had been earlier.

  “Where’s Marin?” He carefully asked.

  “Sitting on the porch, I believe.” He took a gulp of water. “If you’re going to see him, let him know that I’m going to clean myself up.”

  Gus acknowledged, then headed down the hallway to the living room. From the room, Gus could see out to the front yard due to a lack of a door and most of the wall missing.

  Sure enough, Marin was slumped on the porch stairs, sitting, looking out into the front yard and beyond.

  Gus approached, and took a seat besides his King on the wooden stairs.

  A few moments of silence passed as they sat there in contemplation.

  “Did you get your cross back?” Gus tried, finally.

  “No.”

  Gus slumped his head down. He was not off to a great start. He wasn’t sure what to say next. He couldn’t think of any thing that would help the situation. He felt unworthy to try and give him any advice or words to cheer him up. Was that even his place to do so?

  “How’s your wound?” Marin eventually asked.

  Gus perked up. “Oh!” He pulled up the side of his shirt, revealing a nearly healed patch. “It’s doing great! I almost can’t feel it anymore. Every once in a while I still feel a twinge of pain, but that’s completely manageable.”

  “Good, good,” Marin replied. “The doctor did well, I’m glad I didn’t lose you.”

  Gus shrugged. “Everyone has to die one day. At least my time wasn’t this week,” he stated.

  The words echoed in Marin’s undead mind. Everyone has to die one day. Did that apply to him? Was he doomed to live forever? Perhaps one day he would take it upon himself to keep that statement true.

  “He saved my life twice now,” Gus added. “Although I’m now afraid of him now more than ever before.”

  “How so?” Marin asked.

  Gus shook his head. He turned around to make sure Eisen wasn’t anywhere near to listen.

  “I think the Doctor has done quite a few experiments on himself. He must’ve pumped himself with some insane formulas. I’m talking body altering stuff.”

  Marin looked over at him in silence.

  “When the rogues attacked, he… he somehow found a unique way to kill each of them. And he enjoyed it. At one point, his jaw unhinged like a snake, and he bit off one dude’s head.”

  “What?!” Marin yelled.

  Gus jerked his head around behind him to again confirm that Eisen wasn’t listening. When he was sure of it, he continued.

  “One guy… One guy he drained all the blood out of his body in like two seconds, leaving him a dried husk. He was laughing hysterically as he did it.”

  Marin took a deep breath.

  “The things I saw, Marin. You’re right. There’s a whole side of the world out there I never knew about. What I witnessed, I would’ve never believed if someone told me about it. He is truly a mad scientist. I mean, do you know anything about his past? Anything about what he’s done? Should we be trusting him?”

  Marin brought his hands up to his mask, deeply in thought.

  “We have to. We have to because I need his help in a very… secret affair,” Marin explained.

  “Really?” Gus asked.

  “Yes. I understand that he is a bit crazy. Well, more than a bit. But he seems to understand right from wrong, and not ever cross those lines. Although he might blur them sometimes, from what I saw earlier.”

  Gus nodded.

  “Do you know what he’s doing right now?” Marin asked.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s cleaning himself up. I guess he somewhat-”

  Gus was cut off from the approaching of several guards.

  Marin immediately stood up. Gus did too.

  The Tarenfall guards had on chain mail and helmets shadowing their faces. They had their swords drawn, and slowly approached, ready to attack or apprehend the two of them.

  “What’s the meaning of all this?” The guard in the front said in an intimidating tone. He looked ready to make an arrest.

  Marin didn’t respond immediately.

  Gus guessed that Marin was weighing whether or not to avoid the hassle and just freeze them. Before he let Marin make that decision, he stepped in front, and tried talking to the guards.

  “Good evening, officers. What seems to be-”

  “Cut the crap,” the guard immediately said, interrupting him. “What’s happened around here? We’ve received reports of disturbance, loud explosions and people wailing. As I can see, that would be true.”

  The guards were looking at Eisen’s destroyed house.

  Gus responded by trying to come up with an excuse, but it was a pathetic attempt. As he tried smoothing things over with the leading guard, another one handed him some paper work.

  “This is Doctor Edward Eisen’s house, correct?” The head guard asked.

  Gus nodded.

  “Where is he? And you there!” The guard pointed at Marin. “Remove the mask!”

  Before anything else could happen, Eisen appeared.

  He hopped down the stairs of his front porch. He was in a brand new, white lab coat with very little staining compared to his old one. His hair was back into a neat ponytail, and he had somehow found himself a new pair of glasses.

  “Ah, Doctor,” the guard said in a calmer tone after seeing the man. “Care to explain what all this is?”

  “Forgive me. I mixed two chemicals together that you shouldn’t mix, if you understand.”

  The guard took a moment.

  “You caused this?” He finally said.

  “It was a careless mistake,” Eisen lied.

  The guard looked back down at his paper work, then back at the ruined house.

  “Yeah, well… that still doesn’t explain the cries that were reported earlier!”

  Eisen leaned in to the guard. “If you caused the same explosion I accidentally did, I’m sure it would also cause any house guests you had some major distress.” Eisen turned his head to look at Marin and Gus.

  The guard also looked at them. He then turned to his backup troops, and began talking among themselves, quiet enough that Marin couldn’t hear. They looked over the paperwork a few more times.

  Finally, the main guard turned back to Eisen.

  “Well if that’s the case, you wouldn’t mind us having a look around then, would you?”

  “Not at all. Please, look around as much as you’d like,” Eisen offered.

  All five guards walked forward, their swords now sheathed, and began studying the house. Marin and Gus stepped out of the way, and allowed the officers to walk by. They entered, and started looking around.

  The doctor approached Marin as the guards were inside.

  “You came in the nick of time,” Marin quietly told Eisen.

  “It’s a good thing we took care of the bodies when we did,” Eisen said back in a hushed tone.

  “We almost didn’t.”

  “Sorry about that. I wasn’t acting myself.”

  Marin slowly nodded to himself. That was for sure.

  The guards spread out as they searched for anything that would give them evidence otherwise to what Eisen had claimed. They kicked over debris, that made up parts of the house as well as his possessions. Much of the potions that Marin had taken time to organize and make neat were shattered all over the floor.

  The captain guard took the stairs into the Doctor’s basement, but neither Marin or Eisen were worried, Marin had taken perfect care of the situation.

  The three of them exchanged some conversation as the guards continued their investigation.

  “So tell me what happened,” Marin asked them.

  “It was about – what, 2:30?” Eisen started.

  He looked to Gus, who nodded.

  “I saw two of them in the hallway, never heard them come in. Shocked me, for sure. They made an attack, and I dispatched them quickly. Gus came out to see what the commotion was, but by that time, more were crashing in through the windows,” Eisen started.

  “That’s when the doctor told me to stay put in the corner,” Gus added.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Eisen nodded. “Anyways, at that point, it was just a blur, really. They kept coming, and I fought each one. Judging by the remains of the rogues, I might’ve gotten carried away,” he admitted.

  “You really got carried away. Bodies were crashing through the walls,” Gus stated. “And you ate a head!”

  He had said that part a bit louder than what was comfortable, and Marin gestured for Gus to keep it quiet so the searching guards wouldn’t hear them.

  “Yeah, ah, that. Well, you gotta do what you gotta do.” Eisen replied, a feeble attempt to validate what he did.

  “Anyways,” Eisen continued, “I found a rogue left that hadn’t met his death yet, so I figured, eh, why not try this new formula I developed on him to record the results? I haven’t had a test subject in ages, and figured to take advantage of the situation.”

  Eisen looked at Marin, who only looked back through a silent, black mask.

  “Well, as you shared, it wasn’t such a good time,” Eisen ended.

  Eventually, the guard returned to the three of them, done with his search.

  “Everything checks out,” he stated. He wrote a few notes on the paperwork. “If I were you, I’d be more careful about your little experiments, Doctor Eisen. Especially with guests in your house,” the guard said in a condescending tone.

  “Of course, of course,” Eisen concurred.

  “Had that little explosion killed someone, I would’ve booked you for manslaughter.”

  “We wouldn’t want that!” Eisen replied.

  The guard nodded. “And you,” he said to Marin. “Why are you wearing that mask?”

  “Personal reasons. I’m quite self conscious,” Marin tried.

  The guard tapped his foot. “Yeah, well… You should get over that. It makes guards rightfully nervous when they arrive at a potential crime scene and someone is hiding their identity.”

  “I understand,” Marin respectfully replied.

  “Alright then. Boys! We’re outta here.” The guard yelled for the rest of his soldiers to vacate the premises.

  Shortly after leaving, and Marin confirming they were out of sight, they headed back into the torn up house.

  “What’s next?” Gus asked.

  “What’s next is that we start thinking about returning to Nocturne Castle. I think we’ve been away from our Kingdom long enough,” Marin stated.